A year of work in progress – day 131

I used to have an aversion to ‘Thought for the Day’. I would turn the radio off every time it came on as if somehow I would become brainwashed by the religious ideology coming through the airwaves. I’ve got over that now. I’m not anti-religion but cannot abide dogma and am abhorred, like most people, with some of things that go on in our world in the name of religion. But that is for another day (or another blog).

This morning though the speaker on the radio, I didn’t catch their name, was talking about how so many conflicts come about by one group trying to suppress the beliefs or another. He went on to say that ‘learning to live with difference takes a huge leap of imagination.’

This was a nice segue into the work that the Senior Leadership Team needed to do today at our latest go at defining our new structure. I want an organisation that is flexible and agile. One that is not too dependent upon hierarchy and that encompasses many different understandings, experiences and beliefs. I’m looking to embrace people’s differences to create a healthy culture of challenge and development and this is going to take many huge leaps of our collective and individual imaginations.

We spent the morning going through the numbers and possible futures. There are so many conflicting possibilities that any crystal-ball gazing can never be more than an educated guess but by lunch time we’d come up with a plan to get where we needed to be. In the afternoon we started to put the flesh on the bones (or perhaps the feathers on the dinosaur). There is still a lot of detail to be covered but it was a good step forward and we’re meeting again at the back end of August to sign it all off.

On Wednesday it was hinted that I was not, at times, directive enough and that my management style was more based on alluding to general directions rather than giving specific tasks and actions. I was happy with that (as this is what I had intended) but always recognised that it was a longer term strategy and would be the more difficult of the two options.

This morning’s work has vindicated my approach in that we have arrived at a workable solution without me having to tell anyone to do anything. Nudges, hints and a little steering hopefully mean that everyone buys into the process and is committed to its long term outcome, however unpalatable it might be.

Learning points for today: The Leven room is on the right at the top of the stairs; I hadn’t been in that room in four years; a fixed price deal means you pay the price and you’re fixed in for ever; you can still work in shorts; Tardis jokes are funny and; structures are multi-faceted.